Thank you for all of these great suggestions. I would love to spend 3 weeks but 2 or so is all we have (and we have to spend a chunk of that just driving to and fro from NJ–that’s six nights right there so we’ve basically got 8 nights max in SD). I very much want to go to Grand Tetons and Yellowstone but that will be another trip. It’s probably outside the driving radius for us until my DH can take 4 weeks of vacation at one go (which may never happen until we are retired).
One of the appeals of Sage Creek Road is that we do have an offroad 4Runner that DH wants to play with.
When we went about 20 years ago, our drive through Custard State park was a pleasant surprise…. we vowed to return and stay there but alas have not done so.
We stayed in KOA campground. Not at all rustic, but it worked for our purposes. One nice thing was at the time (long ago, July) they ran evening buses to Mount Rushmore and to Crazy Horse. I adored seeing Crazy Horse again, a vivid childhood memory. Ha, I had expected more progress in 30 years but still enjoyed our evening there.
If you get a chance, go to Minuteman Missile National Historical Park. It is right near the Badlands. We found it fascinating. It has a great visitor center that is all about the cold war. If you can, go online and try to get tickets to go into one of the silos. It’s pretty cool.
I also love, love Custer State Park. I could skip Mount Rushmore myself. Devil’s Tower isn’t too far away either.
So now, based on what we’ve gathered from this thread and other sources, we are considering:
3 nights in Deadwood (for Spearfish Canyon, Devil’s Tower, Lead and Deadwood–1st night is a wash because we’re driving from eastern MN and it’s 9 hours)
2 nights in Hill City (we will do Rushmore and Crazy Horse, maybe the 1880 train, galleries and wineries)
2 nights in Custer (for Custer State Park, Wind Cave and Jewel Cave–can also access from Hill City, we want to drive Peter Norbeck Scenic Highway and go to Sylvan Lake, maybe ride horses at Blue Bell Lodge)
2 nights in Badlands at Circle View Guest Ranch (day 1 drive out and do Sheep Mountain Table, day 2 in Badlands National Park loop (Notch Trail) and Sage Creek Road, maybe visit missile site
We have decided not to camp overnight in mid or late May, it may be too cold. We will, however, have an awning, camp chairs, refrigerator etc. so we can bring a lot of our food for daytime.
Other than the Badlands where it’s not really feasible, we want to stay in places in towns where we can walk to restaurants, etc. without driving. At the end of the day, when we are done with the 4Runner, we are done.
We’ve done some calls and have altered the itinerary a bit. Our new plan:
Nights 1-3 Deadwood https://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/rapfp-four-points-deadwood/
Night 4 Hill City https://www.harneypeakinn.com/
(Alpine Inn is already fully booked)
Nights 5-7 http://shady-rest-motel.com/
They don’t start taking reservations for 2022 until Oct. 15
Nights 8-9 https://www.circleviewranch.com/
We talked to them and they aren’t available the last night we wanted, so we are shortening our Black Hills trip by one day. I think it will be fine. They don’t take reservations until Jan. 1 but the lady said it would be okay. They have people who come at the same time every year.
It’s been forever but we got back from this trip 4 weeks ago. We drove from MN to Theodore Roosevelt NP (stayed at the Rough Riders Hotel in Medora, very good), then drove to Makoshika State Park in MT and Medicine Rocks SP (spent the morning at Makoshika, which was fantastic, and had lunch at Medicine Rocks SP, which was charming), then drove to Devils Tower in WY and walked the Tower Trail. Then we drove to Deadwood where we spent two nights. I am a fan of the Deadwood HBO series so I enjoyed Mt. Moriah cemetery etc. and we had a very good dinner at the Franklin Hotel. The Spearfish Canyon area is very beautiful. We spent one night in Hill City and got our souvenir shopping in and went to Rushmore (more impressive than I expected) and Crazy Horse monuments. We then went to Custer and stayed at the Shady Rest Motel, which is very walkable to downtown Custer and several good restaurants (Skogen Kitchen, Sage Creek Grill, Bugling Bull, “Pounding” Fathers lol-a local brewery). We brought carrots for the begging burros in Custer SP and hiked Cathedral Spires, which was amazing. The Bison Center where they corral the bison at the annual roundup is an interesting facility and you learn a lot about the behavior and social structure of the bison herds. We went to Wind Cave NP and hiked Rankin Ridge (very nice) in the snow. Yes, it snowed for 2 days in late May in the Custer region. Jewel Cave NP is fantastic, more impressive than Wind Cave IMHO. The mammoth site in Hot Springs is very interesting. We headed east and did some offroading on Sheep Mountain Table, part of Badlands NP unit on Pine Ridge Reservation. Very remote, very sci-fi. We stayed at Circle View Ranch adjacent to Badlands National Park and it was terrific, a real highlight of our trip. The family that runs this place, the Kruses, are wonderful people. We went all the way out on the gravel Sage Creek Road in Badlands NP and saw bighorn sheep and bison wandering through the picnic area. We had a wonderful time. This trip reinforced my belief, however, that state parks and county parks can be every bit as beautiful as national parks, and they are far less crowded.
We skipped the Corn Palace and have no regrets at all, and Wall Drug seemed easier to see than to continuously say we hadn’t seen it.
Devil’s Tower was wonderful. Uncrowded in the spring , places to hike, and if you do your homework you can be away from the throngs with the most gobstopping vistas. They have evening programs as well, if you are interested in star gazing.
A tip someone here gave us at the time : bring a few gallon jugs of water and keep them filled for drinking. Cheaper and easier, more convenient, and a good way to keep altitude change under control for your body.
Another fascinating place is Minuteman Missile National Historical Site which is across the highway from the Badlands. If you make reservations (months ahead), you can go down in a missile silo. The visitor center alone is well worth the trip. It is very well done and has a ton of cold war items and information.
I wanted to go to the Minuteman site but it’s closed on Mondays and Tuesdays (which is when we were staying nearby).
We went to Wall Drug, which was just a giant sea of kitsch, and had some stale ice cream (sad contrast to the really excellent “Thomas Jefferson recipe” ice cream at Mt. Rushmore) but I was surprised to see that they sell $900 Lucchese boots. If I were in the market for high-end cowboy boots it would never occur to me to shop at Wall Drug!
We drove by the Corn Palace on our way home on 90. There are signs for it and even designated lanes all the way through downtown Mitchell, SD. We were beginning to think that it didn’t exist and the whole thing was an elaborate joke on tourists, then we turned the corner. This year’s decorating theme is “Circus.” It was somewhat interesting in passing but not really worth going out of your way for!
If you have allergies, avoid the Corn Palace. It was okay, but not really worth the sneezing for me.
Wall Drug gets a lot of people who would buy $900 boots during (and before and after) the Sturgis motorcycle week. We accidentally were in the area at that time of year and the streets in Wall were entirely motorcycles (no parking for cars). Basically 2 weeks of solid profit for them so they need a lot of expensive items to sell.
